Instant noodles have a widespread consumer's support for their superior instant cooking characteristics by which the noodles can be very easily made ready to eat by merely pouring boiling water onto the noodles in a dish or heat-cooking in a short time, and for their characteristics as a staple food and their good preservative quality. Those instant noodles are classified according to the drying method into a fried noodle (fried type), a hot air-dried noodle (non-fried type) and a freeze-dried noodle (freeze-dried type). The fried type, in particular Chinese-style noodles are at the top of the instant noodles, since they are very good in respect of instant cooking, handling, ease of manufacture, keeping quality and the like, with a low price.
The fried instant noodles absorb a large amount of oil when fried in oil, which results in higher calorie than non-fried noodles and freeze-dried noodles. In recent years, there is a strong consumer demand for fried instant noodles with low oil absorption, since the consumer has become highly dedicated to reducing calories in order to prevent diseases of adult people and the like. In addition, there has been a tendency toward good, light gastronomical texture with no oiliness in the fried instant noodles. Therefore, fried instant noodles are desired with low oil absorption.
Japanese Patent Publication No. 30431/93 has proposed a method for manufacturing the instant noodles wherein raw noodle strings containing an alkaline gas generating base (an alkaline chemical leavening agent) are prepared, an aqueous acidic solution is applied to the raw noodle strings, the noodle strings are steamed, expanded and dried using a hot air, frying in oil or the like to give the final instant noodles. Further, it is mentioned therein that this method can reduce the oil content of the dried noodle even when dried in oil, thus providing improved keeping quality of the product. However, the problems remain that the resulting dried noodles have a nutritiously high calorie and some oilness and oily odor still remain therein, as a result of satisfactorily reduced effect being not achieved by the prior method.